Dems turn defensive on auto bailout

Maybe it’s all the other industries that don’t pay their workers not to work, but Democrats just held a news conference announcing that they are temporarily pulling the plug on another $25 billion bailout of Detroit. Those who brought us the SUV (with the help of Congress in the form of huge tax deductions and fuel-economy exemptions) already have pocketed $25 billion to retool for green cars.

After days of pounding the Bush administration for not agreeing to handing over wads more cash to the Small Three, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate majority leader Harry Reid said they were putting the plan on hold until the automakers come up with a “viable” survival plan.

“Yes we’re kicking the can down the road,” said Reid, who can speak with refreshing frankness, especially when he’s mad. “We don’t want a bunch of failed votes here.” It turns out that taking money from workers who make a lot less (if they have jobs at all), and have far less lavish health benefits (if they have them at all), to give to Detroit autoworkers is not all that popular.

Today, Reid and Pelosi were all about “accountability” and “viability.” Asked how they would measure viability, Reid said, “We’re not here to solve a math problem.”

“They have to show us the plan,” Pelosi said. Reid even borrowed a line from critics about executives flying to Washington on corporate jets to plead for money while refusing to step down from the companies they have run into the ground.

Those who know Detroit well describe the automakers’ mismanagement as of “biblical proportions.” The best summary comes from former Wall Street Journal Detroit bureau chief Paul Ingrassia, who is writing a required-reading book about the disaster.

The leaders probably stopped listening to Michigan lawmakers just long enough to realize that $25 billion wouldn’t last long with the automakers each burning through $2 billion a month in cash with no idea how to stop the bleeding.

If this is an example of how Congress is going to manage this quite terrible recession, fasten your seatbelts. Or get in line.